As a film fan, it’s great to see you using your inherited wealth for good, Megan.  Your dad is Larry Ellison, the billionaire CEO of the Oracle Corporation.  Your dad, the recent America’s Cup champion, is the fifth richest man in the world with a net worth of $43 billion.  If anybody was set up to be the Silicon Valley version of a Law and Order teen villain, you were it, Megan.

But, the film bug bit you, and it bit you hard.

After attending the film school at USC for a year, you started using your vast personal wealth to finance movies that might not have gotten made.  These are films that the studios were scared to make, because they weren’t obviously commercial.  Let’s be honest, the studios are scared to make anything that isn’t a sequel or a remake at this point.  You are championing enriched cinema and endowing artists like Paul Thomas Anderson and Joel and Ethan Coen a chance to see their vision realized without the interference of studio suits with cold feet.

As a producer over the last three years, you’ve helped finance such varied films as the Coens’ True Grit, Lawless, Zero Dark Thirty, The Master, Killing Them Softly, and Spring Breakers.  This year you have achieved a rare feat by producing two of the Oscar nominees for Best Picture, Her and American Hustle.  In 2014 we look forward to Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher, thanks to your financial backing.  And, you’ve gotten the last laugh as your films have been box office successes, grossing over $700 million worldwide.  You prove that quality cinema has a big audience around the globe.

You have given us some great movies over the past three years, and we look forward to more in the future.  You are using your vast wealth to be one of the greatest things a rich person can be:you are a patron of the arts, and for that we thank you on this Valentine’s Day.


Respectfully,
Chris Spicer